Proceedings

As previously mentioned, the questionnaire was formulated in such a manner that did
not allow for the identity of the respondent to be reviled. Still, in order for is to be
able to develop our analysis we needed to correlate each student’s questionnaire with
its corresponding exam documents, which reflected the academic performance. This
had to be initially done without students’ acknowledgement with the purpose of
maintaining their objectivity. That is why we posted a particular code on the cover
page of students’ exam documents in a manner that would not receive students’
attention. The same code was posted on the questionnaire set of documents. When
distributing the two sets of documents to students, each student received the two sets
bearing the same code. This allowed us to match each student’s questionnaire with the
corresponding exam documents. The information obtained through the questionnaire
was not used until the beginning of the next semester when students were told about
the used code system and asked for their written acceptance in order for us to use the
information they therefore provided within our research project. All students within
our sample gave their approval in order for us to use the information they provided
through the questionnaire and also their examination information for Controlling.
Questions within the questionnaire were formulated in relation to a series of
determinants of accounting students’ academic performance as identified through
literature. The questionnaire was structured on two distinctive components. The first
components comprised a number of 11 questions that had a general character. The
second component comprised 18 specific questions asking students to relate to the
particular Controlling course. The final question within the questionnaire asked
students to self-asses their grade for the Controlling final exam they had just taken
and express it in accordance to the Romanian grading system (grades ranging from 0
to 10, where 10 represents the maximum possible grade). Their answers to this final
question actually represented Students’ Self-Acknowledged Grade (SSAG), which we
used in developing our study.
As previously mentioned, Controlling courses and seminars were structured during
the semester based on Bloom’s taxonomy. It was the taxonomy that also helped us
structure the exam questions for the above mentioned Controlling final exam.
Students’ examination process was therefore in deep correlation with the way
students learned during the semester. Our arguments for using Bloom’s taxonomy
refer to its structure that offers a very clear tool of testing students’ knowledge and
abilities on a continuous basis, while generating clear feedback on what they have to
do further in order to develop their learning process. We also consider that grounding
the teaching and evaluation process on Bloom’s taxonomy gives educators a basis of
comparison between the effective level being achieved during the semester and the
goal of the educational system. We will further outline some main aspects related to
Boom’s taxonomy.
In 1956, a committee of College and University examiners published the Classification
of Educational Goals under the name of Taxonomy Educational Objectives: The
Classification of Educational Goals. Handbook 1. Cognitive domain. The editor of the
material was Benjamin S Bloom from University of Chicago. The committee’s scope
was to build a taxonomy of educational objectives, which would provide the
classification of the goals for the educational systems. “It is expected to be of general
help to all teachers, administrators, professional specialists, and research workers who
deal with curricular and evaluation problems. It is especially intended to help them
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